Ptah Dunbar

There’s been a recent buzz going around the community about video themes for WordPress.

Quommunication seems to have started all this with their Video theme.
Like their previous News Theme, it’s very simple and to the point. There’s no clutter or bloated feature list—just video. First impressions are great, It looks different from the crowd. However, browsing around the theme makes it seems as if the author(s) just wanted to get this out quick. I say that because if you were to click around the theme, say the about page reveals just some dummy text you’d find in a typical fresh install of WordPress. Compare this to demoing a revolution theme and you’ll get where I’m coming from.

Besides the large video area prominently being displayed, there’s nothing really fancy about this theme. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s what video bloggers are in to, just posting their videos online with no fluff. If so, then Quommunication’s Video theme truly succeeds at that. Awesome.

One other notable Video theme is TV.Elements from WP Elements.
Jason’s TV.Elements theme looks sharp! It’s more feature packed with a somewhat similar approach to Quommunication’s Video Theme.

You could almost say it’s version 2.0 of Quommunication’s Video theme (in a good way). Like Quommunication’s Video theme, it’s stripped down to the basics with a touch of AJAX so video bloggers can focus on producing video and not get too worried about customizations and all that jazz. There’s are a few validation errors in TV.Elements that I’d check out, but that’s just me. Overall, not bad for a $25 50 dollar theme.

Both Video themes (paid), seem to be targeting the same video blogger niche. I’d be interested in seeing what other premium theme authors plan on doing in this niche.

Adii wrote up one of his first tutorials explaining how to add a video tabber to one of your current themes. Its not quite the standalone approach Quommunication and WP Elements took, but its nonetheless a good start for someone looking to add video to their themes without it taking over the entire focus.

So what’s next? It seems as if the current video themes have only scratched the surface of what video bloggers need nowadays. I guess the best place to look for further innovation is what problems video bloggers currently face and how theme author’s can address them in a simple, elegant way. I, for one got my hands full in other affairs so I won’t be playing in this niche just yet. However I’ve got some clever ideas if it comes down to it. Can’t wait to see what pops up next!